Kant’s Approach to Resolving War in Iraq Essay

Five eld after the Iraq state of war had begun, policymakers are still looking for answers on how to bring about a resultant role to that particular conflict. It has been a hot election topic among rumpdidates of twain the Republi contribute and Democratic parties in the United States. Some of the policy options presented affirm from a short line commitment stay in Iraq to a long term commitment of about a hundred years of occupation. It is in this light that this paper would like to argue that conflict resolution strategies based on Kantian approximationls provides the best hope for long term peacefulness in Iraq and the rest of the world.In this paper, two well-known whole kit and boodle of Immanuel Kant will be utilized in severalise to provide the theoretical justification for possible conflict resolution strategies. These flora include his chaste Was ist Aufklarung? or What is Enlightenment? and unending Peace A Philosophical Sketch. These full treatment have ge nerated much consequent discourses and interpretations. It will be argued here that these works provide an incisive critique regarding sign United States policy out front the war in Iraq as well as the USs accompanying policy in trying to democratize Iraq.This paper too suggests that a utilization of Kants opinion of republi moveism and its proper application green goddess create the desired changes in the policy-making systems in the marrow East. much(prenominal) knowledge claims warrant a discussion of the ideas presented in Kants essays. Focault (1978) flocked Kants idea of enlightenment as a ashes of freedom. Immaturity is the learn upon which man must break free. Immaturity takes place when we do non use our powers of actor on how to deal with uncovers and instead die unemployed and substitute our duty to think with a reliance on figures of pronouncement for their interpretation of the verity.Kant believes that it is the duty of an individual to seek enlighte nment. According to Focault, Kant challenges each and every matchless to nonplus truly aware of the realities that surround us. This challenge is embodied in Kants famous motto Aude sapere which literally means have the courage to know. Analyzing the put to workions of the American political sympathies and its decision to net income war in Iraq and its subsequent interestingness in the civil war that has ensued, one and only(a) can argue that this happened that Kant himself would be dismayed that the channel to peace that he envisioned was non followed by the Americans.For one, they lack enlightenment. Many of them did non challenge themselves to know the reality of the status they were about to get themselves into. Many had just accepted the version of the honor that was foisted by the Bush Administration. When the US government said that they have fast(a) evidence that there were weapons of messiness destruction in Iraq, politicians from the two major parties accepte d this and liveed the decision to go to war in Iraq. some other thing is that they violated Kants preliminary article on consummate(a) peace that explicitly prohibited interference in the internal personal matters of another government.The only exception to this rule according to Kant is if the country had been break apart into two during a period of anarchy. much(prenominal) was obviously not the initial case in Iraq prior to the second gulf war. Years later, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found while the war has claimed thousands of host and civilian casualties. The war continues with almost daily incidents of bombings by militia forces. Such consequences could probably have been avoided had more people exhibited greater skepticism and not readily surrendered their capacity for judgment to a government that wanted to act so hastily.The American people cannot simply blame their government for conduct them towards becoming involved in the war in Iraq. If they think that the chore in Iraq is due only to the blunders committed by the present US government, they have to rethink that idea. Kant himself implies that if one is faced with such(prenominal) public moorages, one must have the audacity to know the real detail and use all possible efforts to achieve this enlightenment. Kant was disposed that one cannot evade ones responsibility to exercise his power of reason.The only time that a person can be allowed limited use of his reason is if he was part of a system that sets limitations on the things that he can do. wiz example would be that of a soldier who cannot exercise his power of reason out vis-a-vis his commander because the organization that he belongs to circumscribes the questioning that he can do. His ability to exercise courage to know the rationality behind his orders is thereof restricted. This distinction was made explicit by Kant when he described this situation as the submissive use of reason because the person is consid ered as a cog in a machine.This is not the case with the debate and subsequent actions on Iraq. This is because the situation can be considered as public in nature. When this happens, an individual must take advantage of the free exercise of reason. matchless must question the pronouncements made in order to distill the truth that is often obfuscated by partisan political interests. The failure to find weapons of mass destruction has been overshadowed by the now more pronounced goal of transforming Iraq into a viable commonwealth. Here again we can find useful the archetype of enlightenment as espoused by Kant.The US government is trying to convince its citizens and people around the world that land can take first in Iraq even though it has for all intents and purposes externally imposed state upon the Iraqis. The US government points to the cases of post war Germany and Japan as examples of prospered democratization efforts. Many American do not question if the conditions th at were contributing(prenominal) to the democratization efforts at that time are present or if not could be replicated in the situation in Iraq.Politicians try to peddle the idea that if they were successful before they could do it again in the case of Iraq. over again people around the world bear witness to the immaturity organism exhibited by many people in America. There must besides be a realization that the achievement of peace in Iraq cannot be achieved in the short run. This is because it takes sometime for effort to move towards a republican idea to gain currency and be engender ingrained in the sentience of individuals. The process of consolidating efforts toward achieving republicanism is plausibly to last for several decades.By all indications, this is the likely trajectory of the political situation in Iraq yet a make out of Americans are thinking that they should just get out rather warm from the mess that they themselves started. This type of thinking I argue i s another form of surrender to the ideas being peddled by some notable politicians without the benefit of subjecting such ideas to a rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis. It can be deduced from Kants Perpetual Peace that the solution to the war in Iraq lies in the borrowing of republicanism. Republicanism is defined here as a form of government that is deputy in character.The idea is that the representative character of a republican government makes it very difficulty to wage war upon another country. Peace is thence guaranteed under this new political set-up. Thus, in a society that is plagued by civil war, often times it becomes expedient to resort to quick fixes for attaining transient peace. The imposition of a political system is one such quick fix. This is what Kant warns us that methods of expediency omitting all reference to the pure practical reason, can only bring about a re-arrangement of circumstances in the automatonlike course of nature.They can never guara ntee the attainment of their ends. Sorli et al (2005) warns that the American strategy in Iraq is not about to significantly improve the political conditions in the Middle East as the Bush Administration envisions it to be. This issue becomes even more salient if you look at the double meter that the current American government seems to apply in case of Iraq where it demands democracy while continuously supporting authoritarian governances in the region that support their foreign policy (Sorli et.al, 2005,160). Americans think that just because Iraq now has a proportion of a classless government because of the creation of the US -sponsored parliamentary election, the Iraqis would at present become partners in creating a world that is safe and that is bereft of war. This is a grossly mistaken concept because the process of becoming a democracy with a representative form of government has not been accepted by a significant portion of the population in that developing country.This view is also supported by Gartzke (2005) who issued a word of caution that displace countries to become democracies does not help create a stable and halcyon international community. Gartzke further adds that a multi-faceted approach is needed in order to generate the stability needed in a country that is undergoing regime change (Gartzke,2005,29). If there is to be peace in Iraq and for that country is to become a partner in fostering peace around the world, the porta must come from its citizens to view the achievement of peace as their duty.The reason why it is so important that the sense of duty must come from the Iraqi citizens is because of the likelihood of obedience to the principle of ceaseless peace can be greatly increased if this were the case. If the Iraqi people see perpetual peace as their crowning(prenominal) objective and if the government has the same ultimate objective then this would guarantee the obedience of the Iraqi citizens. Challenges to the new democr atic government could be drastically reduced if such a share vision of the future can be achieved among the different stakeholders in the situation in Iraq.Moreover, Kant also believed that the republican set-up prevented wars from erupting between states. The reason for this was because the systemic social organization of the republican government makes it difficult for people to be convinced to wage war especially if they have to bear the some of the costs that Kant himself set namely cost of waging war, reconstructing after the war and limiting the capacity of the overlord state for maintaining peace (Kant, 1795, accessed from www. constitution. org). It is also important the Iraqis view this goal as something that is realizable.Despite of the difficulties that may come along the way on the road towards improving their country, they must not waver. The benefits of republicanism go beyond the maintenance of peace and well into improving economic relations with similar countrie s. It has been suggested by follow and Drury (2006) that the democratic peace also pays economic dividends for countries that have fully embraced the concept of republicanism. References References Cox, D. G and Drury, C. A. (2006) Democratic Sanctions Connecting the Democratic Peace and Economic Sanctions in journal of Peace Research 43 (6) 709-722.Gartzke, Erik (2005). Economic Freedom and Peace in Economic Freedom of the World 2005 Annual Report chapter 2. Sorli, Mirjam E. Nils Petter Gledistch and Havard fibril (2005) Why is there so much conflict in the Middle East in Journal of Conflict Resolution 49 (1) 141-165. Kant, Immanuel (1795) Perpetual Peace A Philoshophical Sketch. Retrieved April 01, 2008 from http//www. constitution. org/kant/perpeace. htm. Focault, Michel (1978). What is Enlightenment? Retrieved April 01, 2008 from http//philosophy. eserver. org/foucault/what-is-enlightenment. html.